I cannot cook. Heck, I've probably even burnt water before. This simple fact, however, has not swayed  my boss enough to fire me from my ironic job at Ramyeon Shop.

I diligently cut the slabs of pork into almost equal portions with my plastered fingers and the tip of my tongue poking out from between my lips. A small drop of perspiration slides down the side of my forehead as the mixture of summer heat and concentration gets the better of me. I sigh and shut my eyes in relief as I cut the last slice.

"Don't strain yourself hun." My boss and the owner, Kim Junghwa, says with a smile in her voice.

I open my eyes and groan, "Why haven't you fired me yet?" I whine.

She laughs loudly and her eyes disappear, "Come on you're not that bad!" She grabs a clean towel and throws it at me.

I scoff and hold up my hand. "Halmoni I'm slowing down business."

She chuckles and takes the towel from my hand and dabs my forehead gently. "Slowing down business? Hah, how many customers have we had this morning?"

"Two."

"What time is it now?"

"Five."

"What time do we close?"

"On Tuesdays we close at six, the other 5 days at 9."

"Exactly -  we don't even have any business for you to slow down." She pinches my cheek and throws the now dirtied towel in a discarded corner on the floor. "Your work here means more to me than you realise, even if we don't have a lot of customers." Her smile fades. "You know, that actually worries me more than I let on."

I take off my gloves and toss them in the bin and hold her hands, "Halmoni, we can get more business, for sure, your Ramyeon for sure is some of the best Ramyeon I have ever had - the shop has potential!"

"But how do we reach that? I don't even have the money to support it or myself."

Hope seemed an out of reach, out of sight beacon moving farther and farther away from possibility.

I smile despite my growing doubt, "We will find a way."

Junghwa Halmoni and I had grown quite close in such a short period of time, she was the complete opposite of what I had seen of Sunggyu. She was light hearted, caring and funny and her smile was enough to break any false facade.

Halmoni looks at me with moist teary eyes, "Thank you." She clears and pulls her hands out of mine. "Serve that to the gentlemen at table-forget it, you know what table he is at." She saunters off into the stock room.

I garnish the ramyeon dish with the pork slices and go into the dining room to serve it to the only customer in the dining room.

I serve him with a smile and he gratefully accepts his order, paying me both in tips and for the meal. I bow to him gratefully and slink back into the kitchen.

I make a move on clearing up the used utensils when the back door leading to the alley at the back is knocked on quite veraciously. I frown and walk to the door to open it.

The minute I open the door, a guy slams the door behind him and rests his back on it, breathing hard. I cross my arms and take in the guys appearance.

It's Sunggyu again with his winter get up.

He catches back his breath and rips off his hat and glasses. He combs his fingers through his hair and  looks up at me.

My left brow is raised.

"What are you ing looking at." He spits through his teeth.

I glare at him, "Wow, you're extra sensitive today, are you suffering from PMS again?" I turn my back to him and walk back to the kitchen.

"Wait, why are you-"

"Sunggyu, you bastard, is that you?" His grandmother shouts from the stock room. I stifle a giggle at the manner that Halmoni talks to Sunggyu.

We all gather in the kitchen and I resume with cleaning the dishes, the way Sunggyu talked to me put me off of having any kind of interest in his bull.

"What is she doing here?" Sunggyu asks

I give him a look, "She is working here." Junghwa replies.

His face distorts uncomfortably. "Are you a sasaeng?"

I laugh sarcastically, "Yeah 'cause I have nothing better do to than follow your dumb around."

He ignores me and turns to his grandma, "Why is she here?"

"Maya, is my employee." Junghwa replies with hands folded in front of her. Her demeanour has changed from earlier on, now that Sunggyu is in front of her. The air around her has grown heavier, a complete change from her usual light aura and there is a sense of melancholy regret swimming in there.

"Maya?" He confusedly uses my name as a question. My mouth twitches in chagrin at the warm feeling blooming at the pit of my stomach as he speaks my name. He pronounces my name as if it is a Korean name - "May-ya" instead of the usual "May-uh" I'm accustomed to. I'm pretty sure most of the Korean people I have shared my name with have pronounced my name exactly the same, but with Sunggyu the pronunciation is more prominent.

"Anyway you little ," Junghwa continues in her unique way of communicating with her grandson, "what are you doing here?"

Sunggyu, unfazed by her addressing, bites his lip and rubs the back of his neck, "I'm in some deep ."

Junghwa squeezes her eyes shut and breathes heavily out of her nose, "What have you done now?"

  "Well, you know that video of me that I paid to not have aired on TV?" Junghwa makes a sound of agreement, "Yeah, it still got aired."

"I'm done." Junghwa walks out of the kitchen without another word.

"!" Sunggyu shouts, slamming his fist into a nearby wall. He drags a hand through his hair, gripping at the roots.

I just watch him wordlessly.

He acknowledges my presence again and turns to me, "Why are you still here! Get out of my ing face!"

I don't know what suddenly comes over me but I snap. My blood boils in anger and hostility. I am in no way a violent person but suddenly I hear hard crack as my palm collides with his face. His head snaps to the side and his bangs fall across his features, blanketing them.

"I don't know who the you think you are and I don't know what the you did but you need to get your head out of your ing and grow some ing balls." With that I place my apron on its hanger and I grab my bag and storm out of the shop.  A hot trail of fire following me. 

OH MY GOD HI.

GUYS. YOU GUYS.

I've missed you all! I know I've been away for like a million years but now I'm back and I will see this story through to the end! 

I'll be honest with you guys, I wasn't sure what I was doing with this story and I'd always be like "I WILL write the next chapter to the story" but then I was like no. SO after some self reflection I have decided that I will stop being such a little and actually write a freaking story. I should be updating a ew chapter pretty much every week and I willtry to keep you gys posted with the story feed!

And please guys, I would love to get to know you better and become friends with you guys, just dont be afraid to chat to me or talk to me about anything and everything ^^

Thanks for reading!